Surface Pro 11 review: A stunning achievement by Microsoft and Qualcomm, making it one of the best Windows PCs of 2024

[Windows Central]

The new Surface Pro 11 is a remarkable design, engineering, and functionality achievement thanks to Qualcomm's new powerful and efficient ARM64 processor. It finally returns the Surface Pro to its rightful position at the top of best Windows laptops.

Surface Pro 11 review: A stunning achievement by Microsoft and Qualcomm, making it one of the best Windows PCs of 2024 : Read more

 

[Arun Topez]

Great review, Daniel! I've been waiting to see an in-depth review like this, especially from someone who's actually used the device over the years so they know the difference. It's super impressive seeing the Pro finally stack up against more powerful laptops in terms of performance, while still having it's awesome form factor.

I've really been wanting to buy one, but it's super frustrating that there seems to be some sort of distribution issues in Canada, which I've never seen here before. Normally our availability is the same as the US and stores are always in stock, but both the online MS Store and all our Best Buy stores don't have the Flex Keyboard in stock until mid-August (they don't have any demo units in the stores, just a poster), and the OLED Pro 11 has mixed availability, with the higher spec one not available until August 30 . When I asked Best Buy Canada, the rep said they haven't received any stock yet since the June launch. And the MS Store rep said they're releasing them in waves on their site, so I dunno what that's about.

 

[The Werewolf]

I want to congratulate Windows Central for making me, when I see "Surface", feel the same queasy feeling I have when I see articles about how great Macs are.

 

[Daniel Rubino]

I want to congratulate Windows Central for making me, when I see "Surface", feel the same queasy feeling I have when I see articles about how great Macs are.

Besides your stomach issues (get better soon), I'm glad you haven't found any factual mistakes, errors, or potential problems I glossed over to be critical about

 

[ad47uk]

I want to congratulate Windows Central for making me, when I see "Surface", feel the same queasy feeling I have when I see articles about how great Macs are.

Er? Surface is just a name for a machine. The hardware seems good for what it is, and at least is easy to replace the storage. The co-pilot machine is nothing special, Just an ARM based machine that Apple have been doing for a few years now. I am a long term Windows user and changed to a Mac last year, I did not like where Windows was going. Macs are just arm based machines now, what makes Macs different is the OS. That is it.

It is good in one way that we are getting more efficient machines that use less energy, if they can do most of the same things on my Little Mac mini m2 pro that I did on my PC, which is an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 based thing with Radeon RX 5700 video card and 48GB or ram or something like. Video editing, photo editing and a bit of 3D stuff.
Granted my PC is a bit smother with 3D, but that is due to the graphics card , i know my PC is 5 years old, but it is still pretty pokey as machines goes. Can't play games on the Mac and the Surface will suffer from that as well.

As I said, the surface Co-pilot machine seem like a good machine, prices are a bit high, not as high as Macs, but still pretty high. Windows is the problem, don't matter how you look at it, Windows these days is a pretty poor OS. Microsoft seems more interested in trying to harvest data than produce a decent OS.

 

[dkstrauss]

Daniel - great review. However, could you speak to the potential impact of Lunar Lake coming this fall? It seems to me that if Intel is even close to their efficiency claims, won’t this kill ARM? Why would users risk any incompatibilities, and why would developers use their limited resources, to support ARM in that instance?

 

[Daniel Rubino]

Daniel - great review. However, could you speak to the potential impact of Lunar Lake coming this fall? It seems to me that if Intel is even close to their efficiency claims, won’t this kill ARM? Why would users risk any incompatibilities, and why would developers use their limited resources, to support ARM in that instance?

Thanks, and sure!

I'm pretty bullish on Intel and have been for a few years once I understood their ambitious "Five nodes in four years."

I don't think LL will be as efficient as Oryon. I hear Oryon v2 (due next summer) is the first mobile Oryon chip, as the current one is based on Nuvia's original server chip design (Nuvia was initially founded to build ARM server chips, not laptop ones). I hear V2 will be a big deal, not a minor clock tweak.

That said, as I've talked about on the podcast, there are diminishing returns after what, 12 hours of battery life in a laptop (unless you go to something extreme like 72 hours), so I think Intel needs to get close enough to be still competitive.

I think Intel's risk is Qualcomm's undercutting them for pricing. As I note in the review, Pro 11 is $400 cheaper now with a 16GB/256GB SKU, and that goes up to the top-tier 32GB/1TB model. (Look at Pro 10 vs Pro 11; Pro 10 is the new Meteor Lake and is still more expensive). Indeed, ALL the new Snapdragon X chips are really competitively priced.

Dell has the XPS 13 with Intel and Qualcomm—the exact same laptop. For a while, you could get the XPS 13 with ARM 16/256 for $1,299, while the Intel model was only 8GB for the same price. They've now made that even, but Intel stepped down in price.

The one I worry about? AMD. They're not making a lot of headway into premium laptops. Dell's XPS line was exclusively Intel until Qualcomm came with Snapdragon X. AMD has never been in an XPS laptop (they technically did a GPU, once). And Microsoft booted AMD out of Surface because it wasn't good enough.

 

[Landing]

Why no benchmark for the GPU vs other laptops ? And what about fan noise during heavy tasks ?
I guess it is important too.

 

[clak]

I also have a Surface Pro 11 and love the battery life. However, I have noticed significant drain, on the order of 7-10% every 15 minutes, when the new Outlook client is running. Have you noticed the same thing?

 

[SvenJ]

Why no benchmark for the GPU vs other laptops ? And what about fan noise during heavy tasks ?
I guess it is important too.

I've been a Surface fan for years as well, had an RT, a 3 ,etc. etc. Got the higher end Elite with 16G of RAM. Had the occasion, over the weekend, to load up Adobe Lightroom (ARM), and try some of the Generative AI, stuff removal. That works amazingly, BTW. With downloading, installing and the AI work, the little beast did get pretty warm, and the fans were like a Texas AC in August. I hadn't really noticed the fans doing usual stuff like web surfing, e-mail, light word processing. Lightroom seemed to challenge it. It was quick, mind you, relatively, but it did have to work at it.

 

[moocher720]

I have a question about external display glitches and other issues I'm seeing with the Surface Laptop 7 (Snapdragon Elite X). I've had it since launch and have been experiencing problems that are concerning enough to make me consider returning the device.

Setup: Surface Laptop 7, Surface Dock 2, two Acer 1080p 60Hz monitors with Surface Laptop 7 display as 3rd screen.

Issues:

1. Sporadically, one external display, when resuming from sleep (lid closed), comes back with changed resolution that I can't revert. Only unplugging devices and reconnecting (inconsistent) or rebooting (always works) fixes this.
2. Microsoft Teams (ARM version) occasionally goes full screen black, with only the top Windows bar visible. Minimizing or moving the window fixes this.
3. The laptop often runs warm with an audible fan even in sleep mode with the lid closed. Upon opening the lid, the fan almost instantly stops and the machine cools. This behavior isn't present on my Surface Pro X or Surface Pro 9.

Interestingly, my older Surface Pro X (2019, SQ1 chip) and Surface Pro 9 don't have these display or heat issues when using the same Surface Dock 2 and monitors. This makes me wonder if these problems are specific to the newer Snapdragon Elite X chip or its implementation.

Could you test the Surface Pro 11 with external monitors using your preferred dock and check for similar display glitches or heat/fan issues during sleep? This information would be invaluable for those of us relying on multi-monitor setups and could indicate whether these are widespread issues with the latest Snapdragon-powered Surface devices. I'm hopeful it's just a software fix, as my Surface Pro X has significantly improved since launch through updates. Thanks for any insights you can provide!

 

[LumiaWin8]

Thank You for the awesome review Daniel
Fantastic and trustworthy review, especially coming from a longtime Surface user.
Very much appreciated - Thank You!

My experiences so far

• got the base X Plus model with GB 256 storage (and self upgraded to a 2TB SSD without issues)
• very happy with the battery life improvements and less noise compared to the Surface Pro 7+ I had
• 3 emulated X86-64 apps run fine (an ARM version is in the works for all of them)
• 1 X86-64 VPN doesn't work at all (an ARM version is in the works)
• no issues with Xbox Controller and various Bluetooth Mice and Keyboards and Headphones.

light gaming
runs my X86-64 based older AAA (for example Mass Effect Legendary Edition) games fine and stable, including game launchers, mod tools and mods - the only issue I have encountered so far is notable frame rate drops during cut scenes that aren't rendered in advance / recorded videos (probably driver issues).
Also connecting to an external monitor works, HDR aside (see below).


External Monitor issues
I use a Lenovo USB-C to HDMI connector to my Dell 4K 32' screen.
Had to fiddle with resolutions and refresh rates on the Surface and monitor multiple times to get it to work so that it's usable.
HDR won't work on the monitor with the Surface connected, but works just fine on the Surface itself or with another PC X86-64 connected to the monitor.
I'm not sure if it's a Windows on ARM issue (tried it with Auto HDR on/off, variable refresh rates on/off), the cable/adapter or the driver issues (Qualcom or Dell)


Future Surface devices
This is more of a short term device for me regardless, still hoping for a Surface "Mini Pro" or a new "Go", no matter if ARM or X86-64 based, that is in the same ballpark with battery life, noise and performance.